A glacier shrinks, a rainforest disappears and a major U.S. city expands before your eyes in the new Google Timelapse project. The partnership blends 29 years of satellite imagery and Google Earth Engine technology to show the impact of human activity on the planet. A new Landsat satellite launched earlier this year will add its leading-edge cameras to the project.

A research effort by Google corporation to make renewable energy viable has been a complete failure, according to the scientists who led the programme. After 4 years of effort, their conclusion is that renewable energy “simply won’t work”.

There is simply no getout clause for renewables supporters. The people who ran the study are very much committed to the belief that CO2 is dangerous – they are supporters of James Hansen. Their sincere goal was not to simply install a few solar cells, but to find a way to fundamentally transform the economics of energy production – to make renewable energy cheaper than coal. To this end, the study considered exotic innovations barely on the drawing board, such as self erecting wind turbines, using robotic technology to create new wind farms without human intervention. The result however was total failure – even these exotic possibilities couldn’t deliver the necessary economic model.